Fatal Hearts by Norah Wilson Page A

someone might have deliberately caused Josh’s death, that’s why. Of course you’re unnerved.”
    Hearing her own words reassured her. That was totally it.
    Feeling better, she turned left onto Regent. In about seven minutes, she’d be letting herself into her Priestman Street apartment. Ten minutes in a hot bath to raise her body temperature followed by twenty minutes to let it plummet—her favorite nonmedicinal trick for sleep inducement. Then it would be sweet oblivion.
    After learning Josh might have been murdered—and meeting his unsettling twin—she needed it.

CHAPTER 5
    Boyd woke to the sound of birds chirping. He tried to ignore their insistent cheerfulness, burrowing deeper into the covers, but then it struck him—he never heard birds singing in his eighteenth-floor condo.
    He jerked upright, scanning the unfamiliar room. Memory flooded back. Josh was dead, and Boyd was now occupying Josh’s rented room at Sylvia Stratton’s bed-and-breakfast.
    Jesus, when would this stop? Every night, sleep wiped the grief away, and every morning he woke up blank but knowing somehow that a shoe was going to drop.
    Throwing the covers off, he swung his legs to the floor. For a moment he just sat there, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Grief had its own inertia, he’d discovered. It was a hundred-pound weight he had to carry, every moment of every day. His frail, aging parents had been crushed by it. In the wake of Josh’s death, Boyd had had to push himself to do what needed to be done. The shock, the unreality of it, had protected him in the initial days.
    But the insulation hadn’t lasted. He dragged a hand through his hair and stood up.
    Even though they hadn’t seen each other in person in more than three months, Josh had been very much a part of Boyd’s everyday life. A phone call at least once a week, and oh, God, those infernal text messages. Boyd had often bitched about Josh’s talkativeness, textually speaking, but what he’d give to be peppered by them now.
    Josh had also phoned their parents once a day, every day. By contrast, Boyd had been in the habit of calling them once a week. Sure, he visited them a couple of times a month, to take care of any odd jobs his father needed done around their old brick home in Glen Park, or at their lake cottage, but it was Josh who’d brought joy into their lives on a daily basis. When he got back, he’d have to start spending more time with them and calling them more often. Of course, the latter he could start doing now. He hoped to God they could spring back from this. They’d been fairly socially active up to now and still had a few longtime friends whose families had grown up beside each other in middle-class suburbia. Good friends who hopefully would help draw them back into their routines.
    Pushing those thoughts away for the moment, he glanced around the room. Missing Josh was something he couldn’t do anything about. And he certainly couldn’t bring him back from the dead. But he could—and he would —get to the bottom of what happened. But first, he needed to eat.
    Fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed in fresh jeans and a plaid button-down shirt, he headed for the breakfast room. Sylvia Stratton was there when he arrived, seated at the table reading the newspaper. She glanced up.
    “You look better this morning. Did you sleep well?”
    “I did, thank you.” And he had. Well, once he’d given the room a first cursory search. He’d known the notebook wouldn’t be in an obvious place. If it had been, he’d have found it the first time around. He’d started in the bedroom, checking all the drawers, looking for false bottoms or backs, and checking to make sure nothing was taped to the undersides. Using his shaving mirror and a flashlight, he’d examined the undersides and backs of the other furniture—the bed frame, the night table, the wardrobe. He’d moved on to other obvious places in the living area of his suite—behind the big